Don 't Become A Philanthropic Colonialist

Many skeptics challenge the reasoning for investing so much money into helping so many other countries when that money could instead help us improve internal affairs. After all, foreign aid spending has increased to $50 billion a year today, which could be put towards funding education to ensure that more kids go to college and possibly affecting the innovation of the future(Morris). Giving more than you receive is nice, but when it involves a country 's financial crisis, maybe it 's best if Santa cuts back some of this year 's presents. And although the argument may be valid, lending out a helping hand can create more allies than enemies to help us in return when we need it. In fact, foreign aid only accounts for 0.5 percent of the federal budget (Stearn). Compared to all the other matters at hand that the government is worrying about, the amount of spending put into aiding poorer countries is positive in both a moral aspect and a political aspect.

Ever had that one friend? The one who tries to help, but no matter how hard he tries, he just aggravates the situation. This friend, Steve, insists he is helping, and those around, too, would support that he is indeed helping. But Steve is actually worsening the circumstances. He is like countries who provide foreign aid to less developed countries. Foreign aid, defined as “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population,” can be military, economic, or humanitarian (“Foreign”). It is often granted to less developed countries in order to evoke government reforms or to stimulate economic growth. However, foreign aid neither elicits government reform, nor does it consistently and reliably stimulate economic growth; therefore, the United States should discontinue providing foreign economic aid.

Throughout history and present day times, many countries such as Germany, France, and Canada have provided assistance and aid to underdeveloped countries to help alleviate poverty. The United States itself issues aid to developing countries which include Israel, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia; this has been an American practice since 1947 after World War II. During the time period from 1947 to 1949 the United States, under the Marshall Plan, provided both financial and technical assistance to Europe and Asia after the war. As a result, Europe was rebuilt both politically and economically. Today the United States continues to provide aid to underdeveloped countries, helping them evolve and strengthen their economy. Many Americans believe that America is doing the right thing in issuing aid, while others hold the opinion that the United States should not issue aid, and that the issue of money to developing countries needs to stop.

In the land of the free and home of the brave, this great nation continues to see a change. The change spoken of is not one that bears fruit or gives to our own people. Instead the United States appears focused on helping other countries with aid financially as well as sustenance. Many authors have written about this recently and this paper will shed some light on why the United States should focus on its own people first and only then assist the rest of the world (Critical206). “If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger in our own nation” -- Buzz Aldrin.

The United States does not have an obligation to help poor countries. Although the U.S. has a high gross domestic product and strong military, it still hasn’t been able to succeed in other areas. In order to help others, you need to help yourself. Until every aspect of the United States is in order, we should not supply any other countries with help. The United States also has a failing public education system, citizens with food insecurities, and aging infrastructure. Giving aid can do more harm than good to a developing country. Instead of giving handouts, the U.S. should allow poor countries figure things out for themselves. “The American way” doesn’t work for everyone and countries, without help, should figure out what kind of system

"Between 1945 and 1983 the U.S. gave away $321 billion in foreign assistance, concessional loans, military aid, and humanitarian assistance." (Cato Policy Report, 1991) The Clinton administration task force admitted that, "Despite decades of foreign assistance, most of Africa and parts of Latin America, Asia and the Middle East are economically worse off today than they were 20 years ago." (Conservative Chronicle, 1994) United States financial aid does not help the problem it stabilizes it until it's withdrawn.

I was shocked by the second myth in Bill Gates annual Letter that is titles “Foreign Aid is a Big Waste.” While I was aware that foreign aid is important to help countries, I did not know the profound impact that America and other nations have on them. If someone had asked me, before reading this article, how much money American spent on Foreign Aid, I would have guessed that we spent at least 10% of our budget on others. A large majority of the population, including myself, incorrectly believe that we spend a lot of money on others. In the Bill Nye video, he states that we spend less than 1% of our budget on foreign aid, but that one percent has a significant effect. With less than 1% of the Federal budget, we can stop many preventable diseases,

The United States want to gain peace for everyone in the world and if we divide everyone for themselves we won’t be able to work together in a time of need. One great program that the US has created to expand our help worldwide is foreign aid. The United States provides around 35 billions dollars every year to over 140 countries worldwide. The money given falls into different categories. The categories that the United States invest more money in for foreign aid is peace and security, health, and humanitarian assistance.

Whereas the United States? budget deficit forces many government agencies, including the Agency for International Development(AID), to lose funding. Furthermore there is no reason to send billions of dollars over seas when northern countries like the United States and Great Britain currently face the highest levels of child poverty that either country has seen in over 25 years. In addition to poverty, other domestic problems such as rape, robberies, and murders in this country still exist. Until domestic issues are solved, any future increase in foreign aid should also be kept to a minimum.

In came into vogue that economic theory could benefit Third World countries, so humanitarians began to evaluate the best ways to help Africa through the markets [Barnett 100]. Furthermore, leaps were made in bolstering the efficiency of aid efforts, and it was discovered that the most effective systems were conglomerations of the state and NGOs [Barnett 107-108]. This may suggest that humanitarian efforts were transformed into vehicles for disseminating governmental and economic agendas, but conversely, aid organizations wished to increase their impact by cooperating with governments and the markets. Humanitarians were growing to appreciate the codependence of these avenues and that “everything was connected to everything else,” so they leveraged this new insight to the Africans’ benefit [Barnett

   Many critics of America's policies on foreign aid claim foreign countries have used America to build themselves up to a position of self-reliance, then refused to make promised or implied concessions to the US, when they no longer see the need to cater to American interests any longer.  The aid is justified partly by a sense of charity and responsibility towards the world, but there were also political

Glennie, Jonathan. "Giving Aid to Poor Countries Is Hardly a Great Act of Generosity." Poverty Matters Blog. Guardian News and Media, 14 June 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

Due to these severe issues, wealthier more developed nations have made it their responsibility to eliminate some of these issues by donating and providing aid to them. But, many attempts have had a negative outcome due to the interest of their government. Although it is the responsibility of the developed countries to aid and help the global poor, due to the severe long term effect that poverty has had, the donators, would eventually impoverish themselves to sacrifice their luxury to meet such a moral

Charity, foreign aid, and mission trips are examples of overly publicized methods of helping the less fortunate. Money going into charities and foreign aid accounts do not reach their intended population. Government and community leaders have a history of stealing and misappropriating funds. Foreign aid can help to extinguish and eliminate diseases, burden weak bureaucracies, prop up dictators, and help prolong civil wars (Anonymous, 2016). Foreign aid is selective. The purpose of foreign money is to improve the lives of the poor people. However, some countries give large amount of resources to friendly countries. Nations would rather give aid to nations like themselves. The Misplaced Charity article states that donors often reward countries with well-run countries and aim to punish corrupt countries (Anonymous, 2016). The issue with this is that most of the well-run countries are not in

This essay will be discussing if Foreign Aid benefits or impairs a state within the international community. Foreign aid is essential for many states to survive. Foreign aid is a policy that highly developed countries (HDC’s), offer a range of support to less developed countries (LDC’s). There are many forms of aid from HDC’s. For example, the Marshall Plan was an American initiative enacted during World War II. This plan was developed to elevate states devastated by the war (both with its internal infrastructure and economically), to promote global peace, and to improve the lives of effected citizens. This is presently the model of international assistance. During World War II many states